


Seven Nights, One Day

by Hecate



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-22 00:59:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate/pseuds/Hecate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabriel is standing at Sam's bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seven Nights, One Day

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Not mine, no money made.

Something inside of Dean whispers _Angel_ and he wakes up, blinking into the darkness of the motel room. He shifts, looking for Castiel, and doesn't find him. 

Gabriel is standing at Sam's bed. 

Time skips a beat.

The archangel is silent and still, utterly alien, and Dean breathes against the feeling of terrible power that seems to spread through the room. Dean moves, suddenly, reaching for a gun, useless as it may be, but when his fingers touch the soothing metal of the weapon, Gabriel is already gone. 

Time shudders and moves.

Dean sits up, looks over to Sam. Breathes. Holds the gun until it's warm and alive under his fingers, doesn't let go and stays awake. 

The first night passes.

Dean tells Sam between two cups of coffee, watches his brother's face twitch between fear and steel and something new and unfamiliar.

"How did he find us?" Sam asks. Dean shrugs and asks a waitress for a third coffee. Sam frowns. "He shouldn't have been able to."

But he did.

They leave the town behind, dust to dust, road to road; and it's just another day before the end of the world. But Dean catches Sam looking into the mirrors, into the sky, as if he expects Gabriel to swoop in like some freakish bird of prey. He almost laughs but chokes on it. He wishes Castiel were there.

The clouds are following them. The clock of the day ticks into the night.

They sleep in the car, Sam curled around himself in the back, Dean in the front, watching the darkness around them. They planned shifts despite the sigils on their bones, they need to be ready. Dean drinks coffee again, wonders if they should have slept in a motel. But motels mean people and people are spies and _Gabriel had been in their room_. 

Sam snores.

The darkness ahead of Dean turns tighter suddenly, turns to wings, and Dean curses a lost God. He reaches out, and the Impala's headlights are like falling stars in the night, bright and sudden, lightening up the emptiness. Another curse, and Dean is out of the car, useless gun in his hand. 

"Gabriel?" he asks. The world stays empty. Dean is almost relieved, but doesn't trust the feeling. "I think I saw something," he tells Sam when he wakes him later, shrugs and frowns at his own uncertainty. They both hate _maybes_.

The second night ends.

They end up in another faceless town, guided there by the promise of a hunt so ordinary it feels as if they finally found the rewind button. As if it's just them and random demons and monsters populating the world and the darkness under the beds again instead of angels, falling and failing and bringing the end. Dean feels like he could just hug the next vampire they come across before destroying him.

It's not a vampire, it's a werewolf, but it's close enough and he grins at Sam because this is easy and familiar. They fall back into their usual routine of cops and interrogations, smiles and research; and they come up with a plan in a matter of minutes. It's an old game and they know the rules for it.

Dean calls Bobby, asks about _his_ research, listens to the news Bobby doesn't have, grumbles as Bobby asks them to return. He doesn't tell him that they need this, a few days living in the past, as dangerous as it may be. They will be back soon enough.

The third night arrives.

The werewolf is new and stupid, an easy target, and something inside of Dean _clenches_. "Sorry," he whispers when the monster falls and doesn't get up. "Sorry," he repeats and doesn't know why. The carcass is a mess of blood and bones then, rearranging and changing, and then it's just human and pale and broken and Dean has to look away. "You could have gone to Stanford," he whispers.

When he looks back, the corpse is gone and he whispers a 'thank you' into the woods, the words tasting strange on his tongue. He figures Gabriel will hear him.

They leave the town behind in the morning, tiredly blinking into the mask of normalcy the world is wearing. Dean wonders, shortly, who will miss the man they killed yesterday. He pushes the thought away. No one misses a monster (but he missed Sam every time his brother was gone).

The road is open and grey, just like the day itself, and Dean wishes himself back to the time when days like this were all there ever was. But the sun goes down and sets the grey on fire, turns the memory to black ash and night.

Dean falls asleep in a motel bed and wakes to a choking sound (like Sam, dying). His thoughts fall apart for seconds and yet he turns and moves and ... Gabriel is there. Dean stops.

Everything stops.

Then, time and reality crash back into him and Sam is dreaming, whimpering and choking on his nightmares. Gabriel reaches out, reaches for Sam, for _Sammy_ , and Dean is out of his bed, stumbling, attacking. And can't move.

Gabriel only spares him the briefest of looks, a raised eyebrow, another one of his smirks. Then, Gabriel's hand is on Sam, so eerily familiar, and Dean thinks 'Castiel', and Sam stops dreaming. Dean's legs buckle under him and Gabriel is gone.

Dean watches his little brother until the sun rises and Sam follows it not much later, waking up softly and smiling at Dean. "Good morning," he says and Dean shrugs. 

He tells Sam what happened on the road. His brother only frowns. 

Then, "You need some sleep." 

Sam takes the wheel for the day and Dean dreams of a quiet lake at his brother's side. He wakes when Sam stops to eat, buys a chocolate bar on the way out. It feels strangely heavy in his hands. 

Hours later, Dean leaves the chocolate on the table in the motel room they got for the night. Gabriel will understand what he wants to say. Sam doesn't comment.

Dean sleeps through the night.

Sam won't look at him in the morning, all nervous energy and avoidance, and Dean wants to shake him. Scream at him. Instead, he swallows his anger as much as he can, looks at his brother and waits. The day goes on.

"Gabriel was there last night," Sam finally says, miles later, and Dean nods. "We...talked."

"About?"

A shrug, a frown, and Dean looks from the road to Sam, watches his brother rub over his lips. Watches as Sam suddenly stops, frowns again. Another shrug.

"Stuff."

A pause and Dean waits it out, doesn't force Sam this time around because he remembers the last time he tried that.

"I think," Sam starts again, hesitation all over his voice and body, "I think he might help us."

"Because he likes us so much?" Dean jokes (means to), but Sam goes strangely hard. Distant, his fingers on his mouth again.

"Not us."

They stay silent for the rest of the ride.

Dean calls Bobby again much later, the Impala parked, guns and clothes packed away in yet another motel room. Makes a promise of return and means it, doesn't tell Bobby about Gabriel and ends the call. They'll be home soon.

"Do you want to stay awake?" he asks and Sam shrugs, yawns.

"We probably should."

They don't.

Dean wakes to the end of the sixth night, rested, his mind and body strangely loose. He forgot that he could feel like that. For moments, he pauses, stays still. Listens to the morning, to Sam breathing, the sounds of cars and people outside. It's kind of beautiful.

Sam joins the conscious world with a quiet sound. "Slept well?" Dean asks and his brother nods. "Think Gabriel was here?" Another nod. "Explains the sleep." The lack of dreams. Sam doesn't comment, just stays still in his bed, looking at the ceiling. Dean smiles. Grins. "He's the best sleeping pill ever."

Sam laughs at that, joy and fear mixed into one sound. "Don't call him that to his face."

Dean smirks. He just might.

"Bobby?" He asks, stretching.

"Yeah. It's time we get back."

Another stretch and Dean is out of the bed, looks out of the window. The sky is blue, the day bright like a postcard, and he wouldn't be surprised if the clouds spelled 'I wish you were here' in some fluffy font. Though he doubts that the angels would agree with that sentiment. The Winchesters don't seem to be welcome in heaven. 

Dean wants to drive right into the blue of the day, enjoy something like freedom until it's replaced with Lucifer and Zechariah and Michael and all the other shit heaven and hell can throw at them.

He shakes himself, says, "Breakfast." Sam crawls out of his bed.

The world ends after Dean finishes his first cup of coffee, the sky turning dark under black clouds, rain coming down like a wall, thunder making the diner shake. Dean blinks and stares through the window as the rain turns to bullets against the glass. "What the hell?"

"Wow," a girl whispers. 

"Holy shit," someone replies, "Looks like the sky is falling."

Something inside of Dean goes very cold and still. He breathes deeply, looks away from the window, from the sky ripping itself apart. Looks at Sam and sees his own fear mirrored in his brother's face. 

"I don't think we can drive in this," he says carefully. Sam nods.

They leave for the motel a hour later, running through puddles that seem like oceans, the rain painfully hard and cold on their skin. There's too much of it, and Dean feels like he's drowning, treading water, his clothes heavy, clinging to him, pulling him down.

Their room is a haven, warm and dry, and Dean stands still in the middle of it. Behind him, Sam shakes himself like a wet dog, shakes because of the cold, curses. Sam says, "This isn't normal" and Dean nods, undressing with shaky fingers.

_Looks like the sky is falling._

He counts the thunder.

Hours pass while the clouds fight. Dean loses himself in the familiar rhythm of cleaning their weapons, Sam joining him. Still, it doesn't calm him, the rain too loud and too real, armies of the sky knocking against the walls. 

The storm goes on, pounding the day into the night, painting the dark sky with lightning, keeping them awake.

"You think it's a battle?" Dean asks against the roar.

"Yeah."

"Gabriel?"

"Yeah." Sam sounds scared. 

Gabriel doesn't visit them. They don't sleep.

Night changes into day with the pale tug of dawn gripping the darkness. An exhausted quiet stretches over the world, wet and cold and definite. Something has changed. 

'On the 7th night...' Dean thinks, and laughs. He doubts that anyone (Gabriel) rested. Dean sure as hell didn't. They pack their things together, reassembling themselves, leaving their room, their cave. Breathe in the new air, the new day. It tastes of old lightning and possibilities, of a war already fought and another one coming. Clear and hard, a drug that floods through Dean's system, wakes him, calls to him.

Gabriel is leaning against the Impala, impossibly serious and terrifying. Dean stares. Sam stops at his side for seconds and Dean hears the deep breath his brother takes. It sounds like relief. It sounds like _hope_. Then Sam is walking again, crossing the distance between himself and the archangel.

Dean waits.

"You coming with us?" Dean hears his brother say. 

Gabriel nods.


End file.
